Chronic masticatory muscle pain disorders (MMPD) affect 5-12% of the population. Combining standard dental care with brief telehealth psychological interventions offers hope for improving quality of life, but few such interventions exist. The study will generate data to support a full-scale efficacy trial of a brief psychological intervention for MMPD.
Aim 1: Determine the feasibility (recruitment, retention, fidelity, acceptability, credibility, and burden) of the PSR-TH and a control telehealth intervention in patients with MMPD.
Hypothesis: Recruitment. We expect being able to recruit one participant per week to the study. Retention. We expect >75% retention in both interventions. Fidelity. We expect >95% fidelity to the treatment manuals for both interventions. Acceptability, credibility, and burden. We anticipate high acceptability, high credibility, and low burden for both intervention relative to published cut scores for these constructs.Aim 2: Identify baseline biopsychosocial variables associated with PSR-TH treatment effects. We will assess the following variables, derived from the literature on biopsychosocial moderators of psychological or dental treatment effects in MMPD: bio: number of overlapping chronic pain conditions, number of medical comorbidities, somatic symptoms, fatigue, age, and sex; psycho: self-efficacy, readiness for treatment, stress, sleep quality, depression symptoms, anxiety symptoms, pain catastrophizing, and affect; social: social support, satisfaction with social activities, loneliness, financial strain.
Hypothesis: Individual biopsychosocial variables at baseline will be associated with changes in pain intensity, pain interference, and QoL following PSR-TH. We do not have a-priori hypotheses about which specific biopsychosocial variables will have the greatest association with each outcome.
The significance of the proposed study is that it will be the first to our knowledge to test the efficacy of a brief, psychological telehealth intervention specifically designed for chronic MMPD. If successful, this could have widespread implications for how we deliver multidisciplinary care for those with chronic orofacial pain.
The study is funded by the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research.